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OPINION

Variance for garage smacks of politics

As a recent editorial here noted, there has been great progress on a number of image and quality-of-life issues in Muncie recently. I was particularly pleased that the mayor led the effort to get the nearly decade-old southside development standards adopted citywide.

The downtown hotel, southside roundabout, plans to fix the Walnut Street sidewalks and efforts to add sidewalks in some of the many areas where developers were allowed to omit that low-cost item are all encouraging.

But a recent meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals left me saddened and frustrated — and far less optimistic about Muncie's future than I would like to be.

I have long told people who commented on our historically over-signed, under-sidewalked thoroughfares that "many of the neighborhoods behind them are very nice." The wide abandonment of houses in the city has made that statement less true than it was, but many neighborhoods remain solid.

One thing that zoning rules typically do well is to maintain the integrity of residential neighborhoods.

In the zoning board meeting that I attended, the board members clearly abandoned any interest in that concept.

A prosperous local businessman built a new garage (to supplement the two-car garage attached to his house). For reasons that are unclear, he built the new garage over 20 feet high, despite a provision in the zoning ordinance that limits such "accessory" buildings to 17 feet. One reason that accessory buildings have a lower height limit than houses (which can be 30 feet) is because houses must be set back at least 10 feet from the side property lines. Accessory buildings can go within 3 feet of the side line – which this one does — thus towering over the neighboring yard.

His stated purpose for the new 20-plus-foot high garage is to house a recreational vehicle, although the design height of many overpasses on the Interstate system limits vehicles on the road to a height of 13.5 feet — taller than an average garage door but a whole lot shorter than this garage.

At the hearing, there was uncontradicted testimony that 1) a neighbor had called the code enforcement office to complain about the apparent height violation; 2) a code enforcement officer came out, checked on it and promised to follow up; and 3) the code enforcement officer later called the neighbor back and said that Craig Nichols (head of code enforcement and son of longtime political boss Phil Nichols) had told him not to take any action and that "a variance will be granted." The fact that the construction continued, unimpeded by the code staff, seems to confirm the testimony.

This is disturbing on at least two levels. First, Craig Nichols does not give variances — the zoning board does. Second, under Indiana law, decisions of the zoning board are to be quasi-judicial, with all evidence taken and decisions made in a public meeting — something that clearly did not happen before the statement was made. How he could guarantee what a board that had not met to discuss the issue would do about it is puzzling to say the least.

The hearing was even more disturbing. The chairman of the zoning board bent over backward to help the applicant. A variance can only be granted for "practical difficulties" or a "hardship" related to the land (usually an odd-shaped lot or a topographic problem, such as a floodplain or awkward access on a corner lot).

The applicant had provided no reason on the application why the variance should be given. That alone was grounds to deny it. Instead, the board chairman asked leading questions to get the applicant to provide a reason for this overly tall garage, going so far as to say, "Isn't there some medical reason why you need this?" This entire line of discussion was bizarre. It is hard to imagine a medical reason why an individual would need a vehicle that is too tall to operate on the public highways — but that did not stop the chairman.

For a few moments I thought that perhaps this was just a board that tried to help everyone by asking them helpful questions, but that was not the case. When a lawyer for two neighbors got up to speak, the board chairman asked, "Are you just representing one neighbor and not the neighborhood association?" clearly implying that only one neighbor would not carry much weight. But when both the president and the vice president of the association stood up to speak, the board chairman and at least one other member treated them disdainfully because they did not live within sight of the new garage.

The final vote was unanimous – 5-0 — to approve the after-the-fact variance.

For the city as a whole, this individual decision is not particularly significant. For the immediate neighbors — particularly the ones closest to the garage — the impact is significant and damaging.

But the message that I got from the meeting does have citywide significance. It smacked of old-time, good-old-boy Muncie politics. The board, with or without direct guidance from Democratic headquarters, decided to allow a prosperous businessman to ignore the law — and in this case for no useful reason at the expense of neighbors.

Maybe this was an anomaly to do a favor for a friend of the party or for someone who has garnered significant respect from his financial success — but if it represents the method of business of the current zoning board, it is bad news for neighborhoods, bad news for the city, and bad news for those like the mayor who appear to be working to improve our community image.

Eric Kelly is a planner and lawyer who has consulted with dozens of local governments on their zoning ordinances. He is a professor of urban planning at Ball State and lives in Muncie.